It's Looking More And More Likely That Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot Will End Up In Jail For A Long Time

MOSCOW (Reuters)
- Members of an all-woman Russian punk band on trial for staging
a protest at the altar of Moscow's main cathedral will likely
receive long jail terms despite President Vladimir
Putin saying they should not be judged too harshly, a defense
lawyer said.

A Moscow court refused to hear most defense witnesses called to
testify on Friday on behalf of the protest action by the Pussy
Riot band, dimming hopes among human rights groups that Maria
Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina
Samutsevich, 29, could escape lengthy sentences.

"Putin cheated us yet again," defense lawyer Nikolai Polozov said
on the social networking site Twitter.
"The court continues pressurizing the defendants and ourselves."

Band members face up to seven years in prison if convicted of
hooliganism in a case that has drawn international criticism and
which the opposition says is part of the Kremlin's crackdown on
dissent.

Putin said in London on Thursday that there was "nothing good"
about the February protest which saw the band performing a "punk
prayer" at the altar of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral, calling
on the Virgin Mary to "Throw Putin out!"

"Nonetheless, I don't think that they should be judged so harshly
for this," the former KGB spy said.

Police detained at least three people outside the court on the
fifth day of the trial after they climbed a balcony of an edifice
facing the courtroom and shouted "Freedom to Pussy Riot".

"The authorities are now trying to imitate the rule of law and an
unbiased trial," Violetta Volkova, another of the band's lawyers,
said.

"Why imitate? Because the ... looming harsh sentence will prove
that the court is independent. If Putin did not intend to
influence the trial, he should not have made any statements. He
should have stayed silent," she said.

Pussy Riot's performance was part of a wider winter protest
movement against Putin's return to the presidency for a third
term. It was the largest such wave of dissent he has faced in his
12 years serving either as president or prime minister.

But the band's performance has offended many in mainly Orthodox
Christian Russia, with Vsevolod Chaplin, who is responsible for
the church's ties with society, saying that "the act was very
stupid, and offensive for believers".